As a scant few of you might remember, I posted a thread a while back about the new Alienware M11x refresh that included the new i5/i7 ULV processors, switchable graphics, and a GT335M card. Someone else got me looking at the Acer Timeline 3820, but they still aren't available in the states (unless you want the castrated version they sell at Microcenter, or else want to ship one overseas and hope it doesn't break.)
Not ready to give up, and now needing a laptop even more as my Inspiron suddenly decided it no longer liked either one of my power bricks (plug it in, firmware says it's incompatible, shuts down) I decided to go shopping in the 14" category.
Saw the HP Envy 14, and it's a sweet box. But the extra resolution on my terrible vision isn't great, and there have been rampant complaints about inconsistent build quality (keyboards and touchpads that aren't mounted flat, keyboard flex), CPU whine, and battery life issues. And given the price tag, I wasn't sure I wanted to be an early adopter.
Ended up with an IdeaPad Y460. They don't configure to order, so I ordered the most baller edition and then bought some upgrades online. And through my employer, I picked up the $1199 version for $859 (i5-520m 2.4Ghz -> 2.93Ghz turbo, switchable ATI 5650 1Gb GDDR3, 4Gb ram, 500Gb HDD, Win7/64 Home Premium) and then picked up an OCZ Vertex 2 120Gb and 8Gb memory kit.
With the SSD drive and Lenovo's stock image, it goes from power switch to desktop in 27 seconds -- I shaved another three seconds off by disabling GUI boot. The 8Gb of ram from GSKill I got cheap from Newegg, turns out it's doing 1066Mhz at 7-7-7-20 1T timings, which is also damned nice.
WEI is 6.8 across the board, except for the disk which is 7.8. Plays Just Cause 2 very well, along with Fallout 3, any of the Source engine games, and I even got Crysis Warhead on it (just for giggles) with pretty decent settings.
And on the four hour direct flight from Orange County CA to Atlanta GA, it had ~45% of the battery still left (no wireless, brightness at 50%, doing Word / PowerPoint.)
Not ready to give up, and now needing a laptop even more as my Inspiron suddenly decided it no longer liked either one of my power bricks (plug it in, firmware says it's incompatible, shuts down) I decided to go shopping in the 14" category.
Saw the HP Envy 14, and it's a sweet box. But the extra resolution on my terrible vision isn't great, and there have been rampant complaints about inconsistent build quality (keyboards and touchpads that aren't mounted flat, keyboard flex), CPU whine, and battery life issues. And given the price tag, I wasn't sure I wanted to be an early adopter.
Ended up with an IdeaPad Y460. They don't configure to order, so I ordered the most baller edition and then bought some upgrades online. And through my employer, I picked up the $1199 version for $859 (i5-520m 2.4Ghz -> 2.93Ghz turbo, switchable ATI 5650 1Gb GDDR3, 4Gb ram, 500Gb HDD, Win7/64 Home Premium) and then picked up an OCZ Vertex 2 120Gb and 8Gb memory kit.
With the SSD drive and Lenovo's stock image, it goes from power switch to desktop in 27 seconds -- I shaved another three seconds off by disabling GUI boot. The 8Gb of ram from GSKill I got cheap from Newegg, turns out it's doing 1066Mhz at 7-7-7-20 1T timings, which is also damned nice.
WEI is 6.8 across the board, except for the disk which is 7.8. Plays Just Cause 2 very well, along with Fallout 3, any of the Source engine games, and I even got Crysis Warhead on it (just for giggles) with pretty decent settings.
And on the four hour direct flight from Orange County CA to Atlanta GA, it had ~45% of the battery still left (no wireless, brightness at 50%, doing Word / PowerPoint.)
